Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

In January of 2012 my soul mate of 42 years passed away after nearly 12 years of living with severe disabilities due to a stroke. I survived the first year after Don’s death doing what most widows do---trying to make sense of my world turned upside down. The pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties are well documented in this blog.

Now that I’m a "seasoned widow" the focus of my writing has changed. I’m still a widow looking through that lens but I’m also a woman searching for contentment, friends and a voice in my restless world. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. I say I just write about whatever passes through my days---the good, bad and the ugly. Comments welcome and encouraged. Let's get a dialogue going! Jean

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Flowers and---Well, More Flowers

If you want to feel old really quick go to a lecture on
Victorian flowers, fans and calling cards and when the costume curator from the
local museum asks for a show of hands of people who know about the “language of
flowers” raise your hand. I was one of four in an audience of over a hundred
people who knew people in past centuries used flowers to send messages about
feelings they dare not speak out loud. So why would one go to a lecture like
that? For me, I got intensely interested in all things Victorian through
reading historical romance novels but even before my decade of torrid reading I
got hooked on Victorian furniture in my twenties, when I bought a Victorian parlor
set at an estate sale. One would never guess that now, looking at my cowboy and
Indian themed living room. The only thing Victorian left in the house is a
table and lamp banished to the spare bedroom.

Back to flowers: I actually learned about the language of
flowers before my Torrid Reading Decade. It was introduced to me at floral
design school back in mid 1960s and when I first became a wedding designer in
the floral industry. I actually did have a few customers in the early days who
knew and wanted to incorporate the language of flowers into their weddings. The
museum curator took the language a step farther than anything I had read before
in my handy dictionary of flowers and their meanings by explaining why some the flowers got their “secret”
meanings. For example, a peony translates to ‘shy’ and most liking got that
meaning because to open they need ants to help them…shy to meet the world
without help. The language of flowers actually goes back centuries before the Victorian
Age and some plants, like mistletoe, still hold on to their original folklore meanings today.

Fortunately or unfortunately---I can’t decide--- before the
lecture I had already purchased a bunch of plants to put in a narrow space in
between my garage and the sidewalk leading to the front door. Otherwise I
probably would have ended up with Scabiose aka The Devil’s Bit aka pincushion
flowers stretching the entire twenty-two feet. You never know when a
kick-back-to-the-past suitor might come knocking on my door and the pincushions
would tell him that a widowhood lives inside. It would be like a flashing warning
signal, “Beware, the person inside lost her love!” Instead, I’m confessing my
love with moss roses mixed with hens, chickens and succulents. It was kind of
funny watching my lawn care guy and his help plant those plants. (I can’t get
down on my hands and knees with my three fake joints.) One started planting at
one end, and the other started at the other end. I could tell they weren’t
going to match up. Sure enough, one end had to be done over. When the guy asked
me which end I thought looked better thus would stay as planted, I said, “Your
end will look best the second half of the summer and her end will look better the first half of the summer. How's that for a diplomatic answer?”

Yes, I planned and made flowers for weddings for twenty years...10 working for someone else and 10 working for myself. I lost count but it was in the thousands of weddings that I did. I liked in in the first 15 years but that last five not so much. I got burned out.

Isn't that true of all of us, AW? It takes years to get to know everything about someone else. Which is one reason why I know I'll never get remarried. Took too long the first time. LOL

I had two knee replacements---best thing I ever did for myself. And I call one of my elbow fake because I have so much medal screwed in there holding the shattered bones in place it might as well be. It happened before they had replacement parts otherwise I would have had one. At the time they weren't sure they could save the lower half of my arm because the elbow was so messed up. They called in a specialist (aka the only doctor willing to do the surgery) to try doing what they did, not knowing if it would work. It took six hours on the table, a turn-buckle brace, a LOT of therapy and two years to get my arm functioning almost as good as God intended. So while it's not technically a 'new joint' it is man-made....or I should say woman-man. The surgeon was a crusty old maid near retirement who, for fun,used to ice skate. Can you imagine what she must have went through to fight her way into a male dominated (at the time) field? I don't baby that arm but there are a few things I still can't do.

Fascinating... I think of the people who see us through the hard times, and this surgeon took on your tough case, making your elbow work again... I hope she's enjoying her retirement, or dancing through the flowers in heaven!

I think you're right Judy. They both grew up very poor and without mothers from a very early age but Dad had his siblings and father still in his life. My mom and her siblings were all separated and raised by other relatives. She was in the work force by age ten.

So flowers were the emoticons of yesteryear. It's weird to use a language - floral - that few people speak anymore. And it's difficult to imagine that kids will get nostalgic for emoticons.

It sounds like you were a romantic in your twenties. Did designing floral arrangements for weddings put the kibosh on that, or did meeting your real sweetheart or something else? I'm still a romantic, though flowers more than men are the objects of my fascination. I mean, what is life without romance?

Every Victorian upper crust home had a dictionary of flowers to guide them on how to use flowers and hot houses to grow them.

What turned me off from weddings is having repeat customers come back after their divorces and want me to help plan their next weddings. One girl brought me photos of all 4-5 of her other weddings and wanted flowers different from those. I decide right there and then to go out of the wedding business.